San Francisco has a huge homeless problem. There are violent panhandlers abound and it wasn’t unusual to see people defecating and urinating in public fountains until the city turned them all off. About five months ago, Mayor Willie Brown sent a special envoy to New York to find out how they solved the homeless problem that plagued them for years. That’s the last we heard of the special envoy. I think that Mayor Giuliani paid the mob to make sure that the homeless in New York “swam with the fishes.” Perhaps that’s where the San Francisco envoy ended up. Irregardless, with the looming city elections, the ongoing homeless problem is becoming a huge political issue.

sometimes people are caught in situations beyond their control that leave them homeless, like the dotcom implosion – although those lucky arses all got enough unemployment (and often compensation packages) that kept roofs over their heads.

the vagabonds that annoy me however, are the ones that feel it’s their RIGHT to live on the street.

they don’t even pay taxes to maintain the land they “live” on!!!

#1 by shannon — September 23, 2002 @ 12:22 pm

One popular view has it that the homeless problem is caused by a lack of jobs. I don’t agree. I think that it is our fears that make us so ineffective in dealing with the homeless, our fears that we might wind up homeless too if we lose our jobs. It is a major role of government to ease fears of citizens. So far, governmental bodies, private agencies and the citizenry have been squabbling ineffectively without making any changes that would remove citizens’ fears of homelessness. Such inaction keeps our fears alive and the homeless problem unsolved.